mercredi 22 octobre 2008

The truly wretched Sun newspaper has been running a sorty about an Afghan family who fled their homeland seven years ago (hmmmm, I wonder why.....?) and who are lodged somewhere in a house in Acton, a house which the rag describes as a 'mansion'. The place has got seven bedrooms and the family have been housed there because there are seven children. The council followed the government rules and paid the landlord the 'going' rate of 12000 per month. That's a lot of money for one person to be getting. The Sun, though, took it as an insult to the working people of Britain, you know the tired score 'They come over here and.....etc.' and mounted a campaign to get them evicted. Not to get the greedy bastard landlord to drop the rent, but to kick the familiy out onto the streets. In a (connected?) move, the government minister stepped into the "row" and gave the impression that the Afghan family would be turned out of their lodgings.

The story is dreadful on many levels. First, the enthusiasm with which the trolls on the Sun discussion boards bray for the family (described in so many racist ways) not only to be kicked out of their home but to be kicked out of the country. Secondly, that the landlord is not the target of everyone's aprobation or at least government housing policy, over the last thirty years, that has led to free market (non)principles infesting rent and house prices. Thirdly, the government crawling sickeningly up to these prejudices. Finally, the fact that the family left their homeland just after the illegal invasion of their country passes them by too.

Why bother going on the paper's site. Well, one has to dip one's toe in the odure sometimes, to keep in touch with the baser side of one's homeland. . .